Question about guardian angels and their role

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tommy999
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Tommy999

Guest
Just curious what the official Catholic position is on the existence of guardian angels and their function. Do they help protect the people they are guarding or are they a spiritual companion, or something else entirely?
How do they differ from the role of the Holy Spirit plays in our life?

I am a Methodist Christian and this topic hasn’t ever been addressed there that I am aware of.

The reason I ask is that I am trying to understand why some people seem to come close to misfortune but never encounter it while others are maimed or killed.

For example, I’ve been close to having accidents or serious injury before (some due to no fault of my own but others due to not paying close attention, etc) but so far am unscathed, whereas an older brother of mine who had a closer friendship with God than I may ever have was killed by a freakish car accident caused by another person.

Just trying to understand the roles that guardian angels play in our lives - their strengths and limitations. Any info or insights from a Catholic perspective are welcome.
 
Last edited:
Tommy999 said:
How do they differ from the role of the Holy Spirit plays in our life?
Click to expand...
By the way, just to be absolutely 100 percent clear on this, the Holy Spirit is GOD . The Third Person of the Trinity. We worship and adore the Holy Spirit, because he’s God.

The role of the Holy Spirit is explained in the Catechism here, especially in CCC 687-688.

Angels are NOT GOD.
We do NOT adore Angels, and we do NOT worship Angels, ever.
Our guardian angels are more like our heavenly friends, similar to the saints in heaven. The Archangels even have the title of Saint as we call them St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael. Angels can intercede with God for us but they are NOT God. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, is God. That is the first, foremost and most important difference between the Holy Spirit and angels.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply. I already knew the Holy Spirit is God and part of Holy Trinity. I was taught growing up that the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives helps Christians in many ways, like in helping us remember the things of God. Also, that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Outside of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and Clarence 😀 I didn’t have any previous knowledge of guardian angels. Thanks again for all the help.
 
OK, I felt I needed to make it clear partly because some people who read these threads aren’t as knowledgeable as you 🙂 and we are always getting accused of idolatrously worshipping some entity other than God, whether it’s Mary, saints, angels, you name it.

The Catholic Church is especially against “angel worship” because from time to time throughout history, “angel worship” has become trendy and the Church is firmly against anything that looks like we’re worshipping an angel. The Church doesn’t even allow us to name any angels other than those whose names appear in Scripture (I think in Eastern Churches this might include a fourth angel named St. Uriel in addition to the three in the Roman Catholic Bible).
 
Got it. Thanks again Tis_Bearself for everything, especially the link to Jimmy Akin. I have heard him on Catholic Answers radio show sometimes and he is always knowledgeable, helpful, and sensible in his answers.
 
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#336) states in reference to the angels “From beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession”. Than in reference to our guardian angel, the CCC continues “beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life”. A number of references to various Bible passages are included in the footnotes.

Psalm 91: 11-12 says:
“For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
The devil quoted this passage in one of his temptations of Christ in the wilderness.

Jesus also says in Matt. 18:10:
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

Our guardian angels protect us from all kinds of evil both physical and spiritual or moral and in so doing lead us to good. They can also inspire or enlighten us with good thoughts in various ways but they cannot efficaciously move our wills which are free but they can influence them by working good thoughts in our minds or intellects by a kind of enlightenment or by influencing our lower sensory cognitive powers such as the imagination. So, the guardian angels mission or ‘job’ is exercising God’s providential governance and care over us but under God and in accordance with his will. For our guardian angels don’t do anything contrary to God’s will but they fulfill his will in participating in God’s providence over us. The angels have a perfect knowledge of the nature and works of the entire material/physical creation or world so they can and do manipulate physical events according to God’s will. In fact, other choirs of angels have the administration of exercising and participating in God’s providence and governance over all the physical aspects and workings of nature of the entire corporeal world. We read about the angels role over the works of nature in many passages of the Bible. What the angels cannot do is work miracles of nature by their own power, only God can do this. Although, God may appoint them to work a miracle of nature but only as instrumentally through God’s power such as when St Peter healed the paralytic in Jesus’ name and St Paul raised a dead man back to life in Jesus’ name in the Acts of the Apostles I believe it is.
 
Last edited:
(continued)

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 8:5). The Holy Spirit infuses into our soul supernatural created gifts of grace such as sanctifying grace, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, infused moral virtues, and his seven gifts. Through all these gifts, the whole uncreated Trinity dwells in us in a special manner. It is also the Holy Spirit who bestows on us a steady supply of actual graces for the performance of good works for God’s grace always precedes all our good works and we freely cooperate with it or we may resist and reject his grace. God is the source of supernatural grace and it is bestowed on us by Christ through the Holy Spirit who works through the Blessed Virgin Mary in the distribution of grace as she is our mother in the order of divine grace, the Mother of Divine Grace, and Mediatrix of All Graces. So, the role of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Holy Trinity concerns our spiritual and supernatural life of grace and related gifts such as I mentioned above by which we are made partakers in the divine nature and adopted sons and daughters of God and through which we are led to an ever increasing love of God and our neighbor and union with God. Of course, as God, the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son also sustains the whole of creation in existence at every moment and works intimately in all creation as the first cause of all the natural actions of all his creatures so that whatever acts does so ultimately only through the power of God.
 
I appreciate the good info you shared elaborating on the Church’s teaching on guardian angels, Richa. It helps very much.

I was hoping someone could expound on the scenario that I mentioned in my first post where my older brother, who was much holier than me, was killed in a freak accident when I was a pre-teen, whereas I’ve had some close calls that I cannot explain except for “good luck” or the presence of a guardian angel helping me.

My question is, Why didn’t his guardian angel prevent my brother!s death? The only thing I can think of is that if I understand Jimmy Akin correctly, the guardian angel is primarily concerned with our salvation more than our physical safety. In the end, I believe in my heart he is in heaven now, although he might have gone to purgatory first. In the end, I may not ever know for sure until I die and hopefully make heaven myself.
 
Tommy999 said:
Why didn’t his guardian angel prevent my brother!s death?
Click to expand...
Life is a dangerous place; none of us makes it out alive. 😂

But you have it right, about our guardian angels placing first priority on our salvation. That’s all that really matters, for eternity.
 
Last edited:
First of all, the guardian angel does not go against the will of God. So if somehow God willed that it was a person’s time to die, then the angel would not try to change that.

Second, the angel can only try to guide us. Many people do not follow the guidance of the angel, don’t listen to the angel, might not even believe in angels. They can and do act in opposition to the guidance of the angel, for example in committing some kind of free-will sinful behavior (let’s say they get drunk and drive). In that way perhaps some people might be seriously injured or die.

Third, I think you are right that the angel is more concerned with our moral and spiritual well-being than our physical health. There are all kinds of saints who suffered with all kinds of serious illnesses, injuries and maladies who nevertheless had close relationships with their Guardian Angels, who guided them from a spiritual point of view and helped in other ways like by receiving messages from other people’s guardian angels. St. Gemma Galgani and St. Padre Pio are two of the best-known saints who were in constant touch with their Guardian Angels and could actually see their angels. In Padre Pio’s case, he saw his angel since childhood and initially thought everyone could see angels like he did.
 
The guardian angel seeks to enlighten the one entrusted to him through the voice of conscience to avoid sin, or gives them good inspirations to the love and service of God and neighbor.
 
Your very welcome. Presently, I can only quickly respond to your question as I have to get going for now. You ask "My question is, Why didn’t his guardian angel prevent my brother!s death? " This depends solely on God’s will whose ways can be very mysterious to us and even incomprehensible at times at least here on earth. God’s will is not arbitrary but according to his infinite wisdom and knowledge. God sees the whole picture of the world from beginning to end, we simply do not. Whatever God does or permits we trust and believe it must be for good even though we may not understand it because God is all good and Goodness itself with infinite wisdom. As I said in the prior post, the angels participate in God’s providence and governance of the corporeal world and all its creatures including us but they do so under God, as administrators of his will. So, they don’t do anything contrary to God’s will. In the case of your brother’s accidental death, his guardian angel knew from God to not prevent this from happening though it may have been possible by his natural powers to do so. God either willed the accident to happen or willed to permit it to happen according to is infinite wisdom. Either way, the angels only do and carry out God’s will. By the way, I’m very sorry to hear of the loss of your brother. I have three brothers myself, all alive and who I love very much. I can’t imagine how it would be to lose a brother in a freakish car accident caused by another person. I’ll keep you in my prayers and your brother too. Thank God for our faith.

God bless, Richca
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top